Posts Tagged ‘small talk’

I was at a party this weekend where I only knew one other person. One-and-a-half people really — I knew my friend’s husband — a little bit — by sight, anyway. It was a small party and I was late so I had to walk into a room of established relationships (even if some of those relationships had only been established in the past hour). So I dithered in the kitchen over the food (homemade barbeque (North Carolina style), fresh corn salad, spring onions with rice, roasted vegetables, coleslaw and guacamole — all the more delicious since I didn’t make any of it myself!). Then I went in and sat down.

After the introductions, extreme self-consciousness set in. I remembered (too late) how shy I get in groups. Most of the guests were younger than me and were talking about things that were only peripheral to my life these days — cafes to visit (I only go to those within walking distance — with the twins in their stroller), meals to make (I spend most of my time in the kitchen cutting bananas into slices then quarters for tiny hands and half-toothed mouths), classes to take (I’m lucky to watch something educational on PBS before nodding off), grapes to pickle (see banana slicing above) …

I was at a party this weekend where I only knew one other person. One-and-a-half people really — I knew my friend’s husband — a little bit — by sight, anyway. It was a small party and I was late so I had to walk into a room of established relationships (even if some of those relationships had only been established in the past hour). So I dithered in the kitchen over the food (homemade barbeque (North Carolina style), fresh corn salad, spring onions with rice, roasted vegetables, coleslaw and guacamole — all the more delicious since I didn’t make any of it myself!). Then I went in and sat down.

After the introductions, extreme self-consciousness set in. I remembered (too late) how shy I get in groups. Most of the guests were younger than me and were talking about things that were only peripheral to my life these days — cafes to visit (I only go to those within walking distance — with the twins in their stroller), meals to make (I spend most of my time in the kitchen cutting bananas into slices then quarters for tiny hands and half-toothed mouths), classes to take (I’m lucky to watch something educational on PBS before nodding off), grapes to pickle (see banana slicing above) …

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A bit about me …

I'm Randon Billings Noble, an essayist and book reviewer, who is also the mother of now three-and-a-half year old twins. I don't post here as much as I used to, but you can read my published writing and hear my writing news by clicking the link immediately below (which will take you to my writing website, randonbillingsnoble.com). Thanks!

I’m thrilled to announce that my lyric essay chapbook Devotional is out from Red Bird Chapbooks! This brilliantly decorated star fold book opens to expose a simple beauty and the experience of longing in a series of personal devotions, its brevity and contemplative prose evocative of a medieval Book of Hours. Each section of Devotional calls […]

I’m pleased to announce that my author talk, “The Sparkling Future, the Eternal Present,” is up at Superstition Review’s blog. In it I read an excerpt from my essay “The Sparkling Future” and discuss the power of seduction, the price of betrayal, Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII, break-ups, beheadings, and what it’s like — as an essayist […]

It begins with a quote from the Sherlock Holmes novel A Study in Scarlet — “There’s the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.” — and continues in 69 short numbered sections. You can find it here: “69 […]

I’m pleased to announce that I have two “Required Reading” columns in Creative Nonfiction: “A Story We Tell Ourselves and Others,” a review essay, Required Reading, Creative Nonfiction (May 2016) Here’s an excerpt: It’s often said that no one really knows what goes on inside a marriage except for the people who are in it—and I would […]